bruce johnson

Here is a quick sketch of what I was trying to explain regarding the different rounds.

If that is machine belting, it is probably one layer of leather - no folds or gaps to fill in. Just one ply of thick leather that is heavily edged and worked through a rounder. Heavier belting might be folded and stitched in channels top and bottom. Then the excess is trimmed the two cut edges are edge beveled heavily and rounded up. Even heavier round are made of two pieces, The outside is folded around a flat piece, sewn through in channels then trimmed and edged like the folded one piece before it is rounded up

It is a type of a "V gouge. TLF might still sell them.

Once you edge all four edges you are giving it a somewhat rounded profile, especially if you are using an edger that leaves a rounded cut - like a Gomph round bottom edger or equivalent. You start in a larger hole and pull it through a few passes. Then step down a size and repeat until the leather is compressed and round. The deeper moisture is critical to allow the leather to compress and hold that profile.

I cut my lines first and then double bevel them. The tool I prefer is a beveled tickler. It will open the cut line, bevel, and burnish with one tool in a pas or two if the moisture is right. . I bevel the complete length of the lines, then go back and use a seeder at the intersections. Here is a link to my webpage that shows the profile of the beveled ticklers vs. regular ticklers - http://brucejohnsonleather.com/content/index.php/leather_tools_for_sale/leather-ticklers-for-sale/ .

That less than 1/32 of an inch of grain leather provides little strength relative overall to the rest of the thickness of the belting cord. That is kind of the misunderstood parts of leather strength. Yes, the grain section has more strength compared to the same thickness of the flesh leather. Overall the flesh leather adds more strength the thicker it gets. It is true that a folded and sewn round should have more tensile strength than a single ply thicker round, but the cost of producing a round is more then stripping out belting. Single ply belting works well for the intended purpose. Another thing is to have the leather damp wen you pull it through the rounder. You want it to be about the moisture content for edge burnishing. Some people use plain water. The old guy who taught me used water with a little soap in it.

I use the staples like Tree Reaper linked to now once I got a die to set them for my foot press. Before that I used a NevaClog pliers type stapler. In one of the LCSJ articles from the past there was a recommendation for an Arrow pliers stapler that uses heavy staples. You can usually find a NevaClog or two on Ebay at any one time, along with staples. Pretty handy units.

Are there any numbers on it anyplace, maybe under the seat jockey? I doubt it is a Porter. I have a Porter kids kind of saddle and that son of a gun is maker stamped in 5 or 6 places.

I mostly use the standard Osborne blades, the test monkey in the picture happened to have my last Buchman blade. For the OSbornes I take the shoulders down on the bevel and then sharpen out to a foil edge and strop that off. I spend about 2/3 of the time on the part of the blade that faces the handle and 1/3 on the outside. That very empirical and imprecise method gives me the bevel I like for the blade to draw the leather in without binding.

I definitely agree with TXAG, it sounds like a sharpening problem first. The blade needs to be sharp enough that it easily pulls into the leather. The blades never come sharp enough. I am attaching a couple pictures of how I grip one also. I point my index finger down the right side of the handle. My middle finger is on the trigger. My thumb lays over the leather to keep it down. This is how I was retaught and works well for me. The biggest lesson I learned for cutting consistant straps was to stop looking at the blade when I am cutting. Just watch the leather staying up next to the guide. If the leather is staying there, the blade is taking care of itself. Good tip for a plough gauge, ripping boards with a table saw, etc. The natural tendency is to watch the blade cutting because that is where all the action is. The leather wanders away from the guide and things go out the door from there. Also I set my draw gauges up so the blade tips toward me as much as the slot will allow. That slicing action helps to hold the leather down on the bar. If the blade is tipped away a bit, the leather tends to ride up the edge.

I have attached a picture of a pinked scalloping punch. They cut a pinked edge around the scallop and some people use those on chaps and other trim applications. A smooth punch doesn't have the pinked edge. Easiest way is to grind off half of a round drive punch. Hope this helps.

Great idea! thanks a lot. Much safer than anything I have tried or thought about.

Pinked scalloping or a smooth half round scalloping?

Go for it! I paid off 90K in medical debt just short of two years expanding way more into wholesale custom work and awards as a side deal. Learn from ,my mistakes. Be reasonable to yourself with lead times. It is no fun to watch the sun come up and pack off to work. Price to be fair to yourself. You have to figure wholesale pricing is less than retail, but bigger numbers of pieces.You still have to do them one at a time. Know your costs - down cold. Don't let the tail wag the dog. If they can get it cheaper, let them. Sellers can always find a cheaper source. Figure out how you are going to handle the situation when his retail customer contact you directly and wants to buy from you - circumnavigating the retailer and trying to buy from you cheaper. Quick thoughts off the top of my head.

I have had both through here. Both are easy to sharpen. The cutting edge is right there and top and bottom edges are accessible. Both cut a rounded profile. The longer stock on the grooved edger means you may have an inch of blade to work through. There is less "life" to the common edger because once you get past the curve, it is worn out. Either one should last a lifetime unless you really grind one out to sharpen each time. The grooved edger may last 2 lifetimes. The stock on the grooved edger is narrower so you can have thinner leather laying in the middle of the bench and not hanging on an edge to hit the angle you need. The grooved edger is usually held at a lower angle than the common edger. These are both based somewhat on the tried and true patterns of the old Gomph edgers. Personally I usually use the round bottom edgers that are similar to the grooved edger. I have a few good makers I sell to who prefer the Concord edgers similar to the common edger. Either will do the job, it pretty much comes down to a preference.

Bret, That looks great, and should do well. Then again, I am pretty biased. and my wife sure is.

Aaron, We pretty much agree on most of it. Like I wrote, I m playing the devil's advocate a bit. I see what you are saying, but I am coming at it from the point of view of the mail order/internet small business that it appears he is setting up. The time and materials involved are a fixed cost of business of a business that ships. I time this out for myself. The most basic order takes me abut 15 minutes once I have got the order firmed up. That is the time to run the card or email a PayPal invoice, pull and pack, do a receipt, print a shipping label, and get it on. I am not adding more than rounding my flat rates up to the next dollar. I am packing a splitter, 3-in-1 or something big, I may have 45 minutes and a lot of packing material involved. I still just round my shipping up, and hope to hell my packing hasn't added more weight than I allowed. When I ship leather orders those two or three shipments a week time isn't a big time factor. When I ship 6 or 8 boxes of tools a day, it can be. My deal is that I have this factored in to a small degree. Is there enough margin for him to offer discount shipping, be price competitive, pay himself and maybe employees and still be profitable on the same things that the established sellers already have in place? I think that some can be beat with service, but it may be pretty hard to consistently beat them on price and keep the boat floating. When he planned to have choices to compare - I think Osborne punch vs. a Tandy punch side by side, is there enough there to warrant and afford stocking full lines of both? European tools? Is there enough demand and knowledge of them here to make it profitable to stock and sell in the US? My limited experience is that about 80% of the Dixon and Blanchard older tools I sell go to Europe or to Australia. Another 10% go to European trained leather craftsmen in the US/Canada and the rest go to US workers wanting to try them.

Do a little time study - Have your wife call you and make a fake order order. Have her call five more times and order different stuff each time. Sometimes a one item order and sometimes a 6 item or 8 item order. Sometimes she needs advice on what tool is most appropriate to buy. Discuss that with her on half the orders. Make one of those orders something bulky that won't fit a Priority box. Add the cost of that box. Write the orders down or enter them. Pull the orders and sort them by customer. Run the credit cards. Pack the boxes and add whatever padding you need. Tape the boxes securely. Print the labels and put them on the boxes. Stop the clock and divide the total time spent by the number of orders. add any materials. Decide if you can give that time away yourself or give away the wages of the employee who does. I am being the devil's advocate here. As evidenced from the posts above, customers don't like handing charges. They are a real cost of doing business though. I can' bring myself to charge what it is worth either, but should.

Mail it to yourself from wherever you are now if you have doubts.

Mine all do that after a while and it didn't matter here they came from. That is one of the problems with LDPE. If you are punching in the area the punch cuts will spread the board and eventually warp. Because LDPE is softer the edges go in deeper than HDPE. On the plus side, that saves your punch edges and at least for me, gives me a cleaner punch with one hit. Flipping the board over every so often helps. So does using the whole area, most punches tend to be on the center of the board and that make them warp faster. I haven't tried heating them to flatten, but it might work.

I have added quite a few fresh tools to my website this weekend. There are a couple splitters, knives, hammers, and several stamps. I have also added a few edgers including a turnback. I am having trouble here with getting a Iink to work, but hopefully this link will take - http://brucejohnsonleather.com/content/index.php/leather_tools_for_sale/ Thank you, Bruce

They are a good skiver for doing laps on straps. Put the leather in, push the handle with one hand as you pull the leather with the other and they will taper right down. As a splitter- not so bueno. There is a stop screw you adjust for thickness. Put the leather in, hold the handle forward with one hand against the stop while you pull with the other. Narrow straps work OK because you can one hand them easy enough. Wider stuff is harder.

RDL, If you want to give me a call, I should be around most of tomorrow as of current plans. If you happen to miss me, leave a message and I'll call you back. Thanks, Bruce

Ditto on what Aaron has told you. I took apart a repair saddle in my old shop, green dust flew when I opened it up, and had a problem after that. I was using ProCarve after a while and it really stopped it. I have switched now to a different casing mix that has thymol in it (Listerine) which is an antifungal. It works for me.

They are good people to talk to on the phone. I thin they close down until after the first of the year right now, so don't be worried if you can't catch someone until end of next week or maybe even the week after.